Curious thing about that code of rights and wrongs! Society was a stickler for form. If either he or Marjory had neglected the preliminaries, then he might have lain here alone for a week, with society shaking its Puritan head. This nurse woman might have come, but she did not count; and, besides, he had to get shot before even she would be allowed.
Now it was all right. It was all right and proper for her, all right and proper for him, all right and proper for society. Not only that, but it was so utterly normal that society would have frowned if she had not hurried to his side in such an emergency. It forced her here, willy-nilly. Perhaps that was the only reason she was here.
Still, he did not like to think that. She was too true blue to quit a friend. It would be more like her to come anyway. He remembered how she had stood by that old aunt to the end. She would be standing by her to-day were she alive. Even Chic, who fulfilled his own obligations to the last word, had sometimes urged her to lead her own life, and she had only smiled. There was man stuff in her.
It showed when she announced to these people her engagement. He did not believe she did that either because it was necessary or proper. She did it because it was the literal truth, and she was not ashamed of the literal truth in anything.
"Is Mademoiselle Stockton sitting up—there in the next room?"
"I do not know," answered the nurse.
"Do you mind finding out for me?"
"If monsieur will promise to sleep after that."
"How can a man promise to sleep?"
Even under normal conditions, that was a foolish thing to promise. But when a man was experiencing brand-new sensations—the sensations of being engaged—it was quite impossible to make such a promise.